The Emperor seized the opportunity to pick Ye Jingchen up again.
The child is growing up. If I do not get my fill of holding him now, there will not be another chance later!
“Who is there pretending to be some kind of ghost? Guards, drag the person out of the flowers!” The Emperor did not believe in ghosts or gods and issued the order.
Two eunuchs hurried forward and pushed into the flower bushes. After a moment, they dragged out a small child.
The child was short and thin, wearing only a thin layer of clothing. His hair was a mess, and his face was dirty, but his eyes were especially black and especially bright.
In his mouth, he was still biting a crimson flower petal, and his lips were stained with glaring red.
“This…” Ye Jingchen looked at the child, quite shocked.
How could such a young child be hiding all alone in such a miserable state in the flower bushes of the Imperial Garden?
The Emperor also frowned when he saw the child.
After the Crown Prince, over the years the women of the harem had given him many children. Altogether, he had more than a dozen Imperial Princes and princesses, but he never paid them much mind.
But his lack of concern was one thing; others could not be careless too. His children were, after all, Imperial Princes and noble-born royalty. How had they ended up looking like little beggars?
“You are… Jinghe?” It took the Emperor a long time to recall the child’s name from memory.
Ye Jingchen suddenly turned to look at the scrawny little child, thin as a monkey.
Ye Jinghe, the Fifth Imperial Prince. His birth mother was merely a lowly palace maid who had once won the Emperor’s favor by chance. Even after she gave birth to an Imperial Prince, the Emperor only granted her the rank of Answering.
Since the Fifth Imperial Prince’s birth mother was of such low status, she was naturally not fit to raise an Imperial Prince. Coincidentally, Consort Shu, one of the Four Consorts, had never had a son of her own, so she begged the Emperor to let the Fifth Imperial Prince be raised under her name.
Although Consort Shu’s title contained the character for “gentle,” she merely looked rather ladylike. Her actual temperament had nothing to do with that word at all.
She raised the Fifth Imperial Prince only to use him as leverage in competing for favor. But the Emperor simply did not care about this Imperial Prince. Her plan failed, so she threw the Fifth Imperial Prince to the palace attendants and left him to their care, never asking after him again.
Later, Consort Shu gave birth to the Seventh Imperial Prince herself, and the entire Changchun Palace revolved around the Seventh Imperial Prince. Who would still care whether the Fifth Imperial Prince lived or died?
So the Fifth Imperial Prince spent years in a corner of the side hall in Consort Shu’s Changchun Palace, suffering all kinds of abuse from the palace attendants. He went hungry, lacked proper clothes, and struggled to grow up.
Later, he found a way to catch the Emperor’s attention, left Changchun Palace, established his own residence outside the palace, and slowly built up his own power.
In the novel, Ye Jinghe was the only Imperial Prince without support from his maternal clan, yet he could still hold his own in the struggle against the other Imperial Princes. Apart from the fact that he secretly reached an alliance with the male lead Xie Chang’an, it was also because he himself was a man of strategy and means.
More than ten years of struggle to survive in Changchun Palace forged a resilient soul, but it also made Ye Jinghe withdrawn, ruthless, and vicious in his methods. He was a very frightening man.
But the cold-blooded Imperial Prince from the novel was now only a scrawny little bean sprout, looking pitiful beyond words.
“Is he my fifth imperial younger brother? He looks so pitiful. No one is serving or taking care of him?” Ye Jingchen asked with feigned curiosity.
The Emperor’s already unpleasant expression grew even darker because of Ye Jingchen’s words.
After being pulled out of the flower bushes, Ye Jinghe did not speak. He only watched the Emperor and his group with wary, frightened eyes.
“Imperial Father, let me go and take a look at my fifth imperial younger brother.” Ye Jingchen patted the Emperor’s hand.
The Emperor hesitated for a moment, then still set Ye Jingchen down on the ground.
Ye Jingchen walked toward Ye Jinghe, but the child was highly alert. For every step Ye Jingchen moved forward, he took a step back, always keeping his distance.
“Jinghe, little brother, don’t be afraid. I am your brother. I would never hurt you.” Ye Jingchen stopped and gave Ye Jinghe a friendly smile.
Ye Jinghe looked up at him. His pitch-black eyes did not move at all, and the sight was rather creepy.
Even Ye Jingchen, whose soul was that of a thirty-year-old adult, was startled. If it had been his original body, he probably would have been scared into tears by that stare.
Ye Jingchen steadied his somewhat rapid heartbeat and was about to speak gently and slowly to coax him when he heard two voices coming from the other side of the flower bushes.
The Imperial Garden was full of flowers and plants. Because of the angle, the two people speaking had not noticed the large group behind the bushes, so their words were very casual.
“Where has that little brat run off to again? He is such a headache!”
“Hurry and find him. I heard the imperial carriage is also near the Imperial Garden. If we run into them, we will be in trouble when it comes time to explain ourselves!”
“I heard His Majesty is admiring flowers in the Imperial Garden with the Crown Prince. Truly, different people have different fates. They are both Emperor’s sons, yet the Crown Prince lives in the Eastern Palace with silks and fine food, and even Consort Shu’s own Seventh Imperial Prince is surrounded by attention. Only this Fifth Imperial Prince, born of a palace maid, has a lowly birth mother and a life of lowly fortune. The Emperor ignores him, and the Consort does not care either. They just dump him on us palace attendants to take care of him. He doesn’t even get the allowance due to an Imperial Prince, and we cannot get a single scrap of benefit from it. Who has the spare time to care whether he lives or dies…”
The complaining voice cut off abruptly.
The two palace maids saw the bright yellow figure and the crowd behind the flower bushes. Terrified, they immediately fell to their knees and bowed low, repeatedly kowtowing.
“Your Majesty, spare our lives! Your Majesty, spare our lives!”
“Abusing and mistreating an Imperial Prince? Drag them away and beat them to death!” the Emperor said coldly.
Four Dragon Scale Guards from the rear stepped forward. Two by two, they dragged the two palace maids away.
Ye Jingchen pressed his lips together and watched the two palace maids being dragged off, feeling mixed emotions.
These two palace maids were not innocent. But in the era he had come from, only the law could judge a person’s guilt. Unlike here, where a single light word from the Emperor could easily decide anyone’s life or death.
At that moment, he understood with perfect clarity that he had truly come to a feudal dynasty where human lives were not worth much.
“Zhang Shunde, send someone to take the Fifth Imperial Prince back to Changchun Palace, and deliver a message from me to Consort Shu: if she cannot raise the Fifth Imperial Prince properly, there are plenty of people willing to raise him!” the Emperor said to Zhang Shunde.
After speaking, he glanced at Ye Jinghe, walked over to Ye Jingchen, scooped him up into his arms again, turned around, and left.
“Imperial Father, are we just leaving my fifth imperial younger brother alone?” Ye Jingchen lay in the Emperor’s arms, his chin resting on the Emperor’s shoulder, watching the child grow farther and farther away.
That child remained silent and motionless, only staring at them with those pitch-black eyes as they walked away.
“After this, Consort Shu will treat him well,” the Emperor said, though in his heart he was already thinking that it seemed he would have to give Consort Shu a proper warning.
For the rest of the way, the Emperor held Ye Jingchen and would not let go.
At Ye Jingchen’s current age, he was probably about 1.1 or 1.2 meters tall and weighed sixty or seventy jin, so he was no longer really suitable to be carried. But the Emperor’s physical condition seemed quite good. After holding him for so long today, his face was not red and he was not out of breath, as though nothing had happened.
Those two palace maids were right: different people had different fates. On Ye Jingchen’s side, the Emperor would not even let him walk a few steps, fearing he would tire himself out. But toward Ye Jinghe, the Emperor would not even spare an extra question.
Ye Jinghe’s miserable childhood was also the Emperor’s responsibility, and a very large one at that!